A2 Media - Music Video Audience Research

As part of my audience research I created a survey using the website surveymonkey.com and then sent it to friends, family and people in my media class. The purpose of this survey was to help determine my potential audience and what they expect to see in my music video, I provided them a YouTube link to a lyric video of my chosen song (so they could not be influenced by the existing video) as a way for them to be familiar with the song before answering the questions within the survey.

The results of this question show that 64.62% of those who took my survey are aged between 17-20, and 30.77% were aged 16 or under. meaning that a total 95.39% of those taking the survey were aged 20 or under, meaning that the audience I should be aiming my music video towards is mainly teenagers.

Here I was gathering information on what editing speed my potential audience believe my chosen song should have. As I gave them a link to a lyric video to allow them to answer with what editing speed they personally imagine and not what the existing video has. We can see that 58.46% think it should be paced at a medium speed and 20.00% thought it should be fast, from these results I know I should create a faster editing speed as oppose to slow.

The purpose of this question was to help me decide on whether to film my music video in colour or black and white as I was unsure which would be the best option for my song at first. Those who took my survey seem to think it should be in colour as 52.31% answered with that option. Only 19.92% selected black and white, meaning I should clearly use just colour or a combination of both as 30.77% thought that would work.

This is the final question and the one with the answers that would influence me the most. I had posted my three initial ideas for my music video to see which was the most popular option. 55.38% chose my third idea which was the most unique and different from most music videos today. The first option was what most videos consist of these days but surprisingly less people liked that at just 18.46%.

This question refers to the previous one and basically asks the participant to say why the option they selected appealed to them the most. These answers were very useful to me as they allowed me to view the actual reasons people like their chosen idea. Those who picked the third option all seemed the idea was the most fitting to the song as it gives a vintage vibe. Many people also said this idea was different to existing products of today and will therefore gain attention from the audience. This information was very useful in assisting me when making my third initial idea my final choice.

As a part of my earlier audience research I made some polls which I added to the side of my blog, so when people visited they could quickly answer them and I could then use the results as part of my audience research. I asked two simple questions to give me an idea of how people consumed music and which recent videos are their personal favourite.

The first poll simply asked how they would normally watch music videos giving the options of streaming them online, on music channels, both or other. The results show that the majority stream music videos online (38%) whilst similar numbers watch them on T.V. music channels or use both (31% for both). The other option was not chosen by anyone so we see that in this case all music is consumed online or on music channels.

The second question lists six recent songs from the U.K top 40 and asked for them to select their favourite. The two most popular were “Thinking out loud” and “Bang Bang” at 25% each, which is interesting as both videos have very different concepts. One is a continuous dance routine filmed in just one location, whilst the other is filmed in numerous locations with a range of different outfits. This suggests that any type of music video can be a favourite and successful and there is no secret.